FG Rejects Insecurity Reports Even When They Come From Its Agencies

Over the past year, a growing trend has emerged in Nigeria: official bodies have frequently dismissed or undermined data, studies, and analyses about the country’s security landscape even when those figures originate from domestic agencies.

This pattern reached its latest peak when the Defence Headquarters (DHQ) openly rejected an Amnesty International report that documented thousands of civilian deaths tied to violent incidents nationwide over the previous twelve months.

Amnesty International’s Findings and the DHQ’s Response

In its recent briefing, Amnesty International a global human rights watchdog founded in 1961 with over ten million members and supporters reported that Nigeria suffered at least 10,217 violent deaths over the past two years. The research highlighted Benue and Plateau states as particularly affected regions, noting that more than 672 villages had been attacked, looted, or completely destroyed by armed groups.

Rather than engaging directly with these figures, the DHQ, speaking through Director of Defence Media Operations Major General Markus Kangye, dismissed the Amnesty report as “sweeping generalisations” based on “unverified statistics.” Kangye, in comments delivered last Friday, insisted that the military had achieved significant progress across troubled areas. For example, he cited active military deployments in hotspots such as Maru (Zamfara State), Bokkos (Plateau State), and Logo (Benue State), which he said provided enough security for internally displaced persons (IDPs) to begin returning to their communities under military protection.

Kangye also highlighted several concrete achievements claimed by the Armed Forces:

Abduction Rescues: Working alongside local intelligence networks, the military reportedly rescued over 1,200 abducted civilians in the past two years. Of those, 687 were freed through more than 2,000 targeted offensive operations, which Kangye said also resulted in the elimination of over 1,500 suspected terrorists and the destruction of multiple bandit enclaves particularly in Zamfara State.
Territorial Control and Joint Operations: The DHQ specifically mentioned that areas like Bafarawa and Gebe in Sokoto State are now within range of military Forward Operating Bases. Kangye claimed that coordinated “joint operations” with other security agencies have successfully cleared out bandit strongholds there, reducing the threat to nearby farming communities and trade routes.

By framing its rebuttal around such successes, the military sought to undercut Amnesty’s casualty figures without delving into the methodological details of how those figures were arrived at. Kangye questioned the reliability of an external organisation’s assessment: “It’s like someone other than myself informing me about what’s happening in my own house. If I am head of the household, which account would be more credible?” he rhetorically asked.

A Broader Pattern of Disputing Insecurity Metrics

This pushback against Amnesty is not an isolated incident. In March, the Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP) released its annual Global Terrorism Index (GTI), which ranked Nigeria as the sixth most terrorized country worldwide.

The GTI report, drawing on data from the Global Terrorism Database (GTD) maintained by the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START) at the University of Maryland, recorded 565 terrorism-related deaths in Nigeria in 2024 alone. Rather than address the core findings, the DHQ again questioned the report’s integrity, choosing instead to emphasize its own list of military “achievements” and downplay the scale of violent incidents.

Similarly, towards the end of last year, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) published a detailed survey revealing that Nigerian households had paid a staggering ₦2.3 trillion in ransom payments between mid-2023 and mid-2024. The same NBS report also indicated that roughly 2.8 million Nigerians fell victim to robberies in 2024; yet fewer than half of those incidents 988,652 were officially reported to the police. Among those who chose not to report, at least 374,679 cited a lack of confidence in law enforcement’s ability to respond effectively.

The fallout from this NBS publication was swift. Pro-government voices decried the high ransom figures, and within days, the Department of State Services (DSS) summoned Adeniran Adeyemi, the Statistician General of the Federation, to answer questions about the data. Almost immediately afterward, the NBS website pulled down the report, claiming it had been hacked or otherwise compromised. While no conclusive proof of foul play has been publicly produced, the incident further fueled suspicions that key state actors prefer to quash or discredit alarming statistics that might cast the security apparatus in a negative light.

Historical Context: Military Custody Deaths and Civilian Casualties

It is worth noting that Amnesty International has, on multiple occasions, attempted to bring attention to civilian harm caused by security operations. In December 2023, the organisation published a report asserting that over 10,000 civilians had died in military custody since Nigeria ramped up its counter-terrorism campaign against Boko Haram in 2009. Once again, the DHQ labeled these claims as “baseless” and “lacking merit,” insisting that any deaths in custody were either legitimate combat casualties or the result of daring jailbreaks by detainees.

Yet, independent researchers and local watchdogs continue to document persistent violence affecting ordinary Nigerians. For example:

SBM Intelligence, a domestic research firm, catalogued at least 25 fatal attacks carried out by pastoralist militias (often identified as Fulani herdsmen) between early 2024 and early 2025. These assaults resulted in dozens of deaths and the destruction of farmlands and properties.
SBM also reported 313 violent incidents linked to the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) across 2024 the highest annual total since 2021 underscoring escalating secessionist tensions in the Southeast.
FactCheck Nigeria’s Forensic Investigations and Journalism (FIJ) unit chronicled a string of bloody massacres in Benue and Plateau states: between March 27 and late April 2024, suspected terrorist groups reportedly killed at least 20 civilians in Bokkos Local Government Area (LGA) of Plateau State. Other local NGOs and community leaders suggested the actual death toll could be over 60 for that period.
In April 2024, coordinated raids by men widely described by residents as Fulani herders killed more than 30 villagers across Bokkos and Mangu LGAs in a single weekend an escalation that prompted renewed calls for effective community-based countermeasures.

Amid these recurring cycles of violence, many analysts argue that accurate, transparent data is crucial for crafting policies that address the root causes: demographic pressures, ethnic and religious animosities, competition over grazing land, and the proliferation of small arms. By categorically rejecting or impugning such data, the government risks obscuring the real scope of insecurity and delaying desperately needed reforms.

Why Official Pushback Matters

At its core, the repeated dismissal of security assessments even those generated domestically speaks to a deeper tension between accountability and national image management. When government bodies label rigorous studies as “unverified” or politically motivated, they not only undermine public trust in independent institutions, but also jeopardize collaboration with international partners, donor agencies, and humanitarian organisations that rely on accurate figures to allocate resources.

Moreover, when victims’ stories and local communities’ experiences are overshadowed by official talking points, it becomes harder for ordinary Nigerians especially those in remote or conflict-affected areas to demand justice, restitution, or military restraint. If death tolls, abduction numbers, or reports of property destruction are continually downplayed, there is a genuine risk that patterns of impunity will persist.

Looking Ahead: The Need for Collaborative Reporting

As Nigeria grapples with multifaceted security challenges from Boko Haram insurgents in the Northeast, to banditry in the Northwest, to communal clashes in the Middle Belt and separatist tensions in the Southeast stakeholders increasingly call for a more transparent, data-driven approach. Civil society groups, journalists, academic researchers, and local NGOs are pushing for:

Independent Verification Committees: Panels composed of security experts, human rights defenders, and civil society representatives can review and corroborate casualty figures and incident reports before they become public.
Community-Based Reporting Networks: Training and equipping local volunteers to document violence in real time—via mobile apps, local radio stations, or community bulletin boards—would supplement official sources and reduce information gaps.
Regular Dialogues with Security Agencies: Establishing forums where military, police, and intelligence personnel engage openly with statisticians and human rights monitors, so that discrepancies in data can be addressed collaboratively rather than dismissed outright.
Publication of Raw Data: Where feasible, security agencies could share anonymized incident logs such as numbers of arrests, rescue operations, recovered weapons, and confirmed fatalities with the public or with independent auditors. Transparency in these metrics can build credibility and foster trust.

Absent such measures, Nigeria risks remaining locked in a cycle where official denials clash with independent (and often more harrowing) accounts of violence, prolonging the insecurity that fuels fear, disrupts livelihoods, and displaces millions of citizens each year.

The recent Defence Headquarters’ rejection of Amnesty International’s report is only the latest example of a broader pattern: the sidelining of critical data on Nigeria’s security crisis, even when produced by national institutions.

By consistently questioning figures on terrorism-related deaths, abduction rescues, ransom payments, and military custody fatalities, government entities have created an atmosphere where citizens must guess whom to believe. Until stakeholders commit to transparent data-sharing, collaborative verification, and open discourse, the true human cost of Nigeria’s insecurity will remain clouded—and the urgent solutions needed may be delayed.